The Cornerposts of Democracy
Doris Haddock addresses
Tennessee Common Cause.
October 9, 1999, Nashville
Thank you. It is a great pleasure to be here this evening. It gives me the ability to publicly thank Phil and so many of you who have made my trek through Tennessee a joy and a success.
And I thank you all for your steadfast support of good government reform through Common Cause and your other civic activities. I know the work seems never-ending, but "democracy" in fact is a better verb than a noun --it is a work in progress; it is what free people do. We are fortunate, then, that the forces of greed and deception are always busy out there, giving us the gift of a good fight, which is exactly what we are are on this earth for.
After awhile, of course, we reformers are liable to start boxing at every shadow. It may become difficult to distinguish the critical fights from the meaningless ones. But we must make those distinctions --we must pick our fights carefully-- if we are to succeed in the vital areas.
In order to pick the best fights, we must be able to visualize a healthy democracy. We must understand the architecture of a good civic life, and focus our repair work strategically.
What indeed are the cornerposts that hold up our temple of democracy? I would like us to take a brief walk together around this great structure, poking here and there and making a brief list of needed repairs.
To begin, let me say that, at the founding cornerpost of our building is a stately --if somewhat chipped-- Corinthian column called Education. It is impossible to have proper self-governance if our people are not educated to the task. I am speaking of a "Liberal Education." The word "liberal," of course, refers to the liberation of the mind to think for itself. If our people cannot think for themselves, we cannot sustain ourselves as a free people. It is not enough to give our children trade school educations if we would have them be a people capable of self government. To participate properly in self-governance, people must understand the nature of human beings and they must come to love them in all their complex diversity. That requires a good dose of Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Cervantes and a hundred other writers, historians, geographers, philosophers, theologians and poets.
In fact, in this new century, there is no point and no future to ending a person's education in high school. We have publicly funded grade school and high school in the 20th Century, and now we must extend that to the college years for all our young people. We must insist that these schools turn out human beings of the highest order --nothing less will do in a world so balanced on the edge of disaster.
You are wondering if I am getting off my subject. In our work, we may want to focus on campaign reform and let others look to other issues such as education. But I tell you that we must help each other to strengthen all the cornerposts that keep this house up, or it will surely fall down upon us all.
Holding up another corner of our democracy is a great cornerpost that perhaps we can visualize as a farm silo, for it represents the harvest plenty. Not only must we be free to think for ourselves, we must personally have leisure time and a modest financial surplus. Democracy thrives best in nations where there is a healthy condition of wealth spread throughout the people. Wealth is not defined by high consumption: it is a condition of surplus, of plenty. From plenty comes security, confidence, brave outspokenness, and the ability to participate generously in a family and in a community.
In my trek I have seen many people who are too abused by long working hours and long commutes and short paychecks and credit-based living to be able to properly take care of their own families, much less take care of their communities. Living paycheck to paycheck, they cower in private places, bowing to computer and television screens, unable to risk the contribution of even a common sense opinion, for fear that it might land them on the street. Regardless of its technologies, a society that lives fearfully hand-to-mouth is not wealthy.
Our democracy was founded in more agricultural times, when the harvest plenty gave families the security of knowing that, if they worked hard, they would probably have sufficient resources for their families and their communities. Self-reliance also made them free with their opinions, and the rhythms of the seasons gave them the surplus of time to be engaged in the civic realm. Today, large corporations have replaced the family business, and, for many working families, there is no surplus of resources or time. This is a critical problem for the long term survival of our democracy, and one that we must address creatively.
We may fight our campaign reform battles and think that labor unions and social justice activists will hold up their end of the building, but if all reformers do not stand together to fight for improvements in the working lives of Americans --to fight for a grand new expansion of the middle class through a reemergence of small businesses, fair labor practices, lifetime education, better urban planning, and corporate employment policies that enable people to have lives outside their offices-- this democracy we love cannot stand.
At another corner, there is a double-pillar called Equality and Fairness. As we fight for a broad new middle class, we must continue the hard and sometimes frustrating work of bringing all Americans along together. If we pretend that minorities do not operate with tremendous psychological and economic handicaps in this society, and if we do not take steps to affirmatively overcome those unfair handicaps, we are sowing the seeds of our own failure as a democracy. Yes, we are individuals and we have the right to individual fairness and equality. But, yes, we are also groups, and we must be prepared to bring groups into equal status for the good of our best dreams for our democracy. Simple minds cannot balance these competing ideas. Mature, well-educated minds can indeed --and they must prevail if we are not to slip dangerously into a cruel and unstable past.
The most valuable asset that Americans enjoy --after each other-- is our Constitution. A system of fair rules, of justice, is what preserves us from the storms of history in the world around us. We have to fight that fight, too. We cannot let others or ourselves be victimized by those who would use the power of scale or wealth to undermine our equality, muffle our voices, or separate us by income, race or age. If we are not daily defenders of social justice issues, we have no legitimacy as reformers.
And a final corner. Our more familiar part of the great building: Democracy is a marketplace where ideas and the powers of the people come together. We can visualize a great kiosk holding up the forth corner of our building, with great and colorful posters of candidates and ideas around it in profusion. If a democracy is a free market of ideas, the ideas must all be seen and heard and understood by all.
When I was a little girl, there were great political speeches in the parks come election season. We all heard all the speeches. Just as our towns provided the stages for those debates and speeches, we must now provide modern ways for candidates to have free and equal access to our ears and eyes, come election season. Since we can no longer all fit in the park, we must provide a public financing system for candidates who wish to take advantage of it.
Otherwise, only those candidates and ideas will be heard who have already sold themselves to power, and they are not honestly offering themselves to us --they are already sold.
Regardless of the outcome of the current battle to get corporate money out of our elections, we must rebuild our ability to communicate political ideas to each other freely as free people. Democracy can not afford any dollar signs --it has no place for them.
These may seem like dark days for democracy, but it always seems so. We are always in deep trouble. Thank God for that. Thank God we are each given such important work to do in our lifetimes for the survival of our people and of our still brightly shining ideals of equality and mutual freedom. It is supposed to be like this. We are supposed to give ourselves body and soul to our beliefs, and we cannot do so where there is no challenge, no fight. Dark clouds are simply the proper backdrops for our best exercise of courage. Where but in battle, or upon its eve, can we feel such friendship and brotherhood --as many of us do tonight in this room?
In the coming week we have an opportunity for a great victory or a great defeat in Congress. Let's not conserve or spare ourselves. Let's do all that we can the next few days to fight for what we believe.
And throughout the coming year and into the coming new century, let us not specialize too narrowly in our concerns. Let us work together to keep all the cornerposts of our democracy in good condition, by working as great friends, and in great coalitions as fellow Americans and as fellow citizens of the world.
Thank you.